Bulgarian FM: We can’t give Hezbollah terror label

Smoke rising from the Sarafovo Airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, after a terror attack on an Israeli tour bus, July 18, 2012. (photo credit: JTA/Burgasinfo)

Bulgaria cannot label Hezbollah a terror organization, the country’s foreign minister said Saturday, several days after Sofia released a report blaming the Lebanese group for a bombing that targeted Israelis.

On Tuesday, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov released a report suggesting that Hezbollah was behind a July 18 bombing of a bus near the resort town of Burgas that killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian.

The report is expected to serve as a shot in the arm for efforts by Israel and the US to have the Iran-backed group, which currently enjoys free movement across much of Europe, labeled a terror organization by the European Union.

Mladenov said the issue would be discussed at an EU meeting of foreign ministers later this month.

“A lot of details of the findings will be discussed. In the following months and weeks what we found related to the attack will not remain without its consequences on the part of the EU,” Mladenov said, according to the Sofia News Agency.

Investigators say they believe two of the suspects behind the bombing, who hold Canadian and Australian passports, are currently in Lebanon.

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